HP Pavilion Power 580-023w Gaming Desktop Review

HP has been quite successful at trying to carve out a niche in the tech world by packing more into their lineup than the competitors. The GeForce GTX 1060 is the 3GB model, not the 6GB version. That isn’t too surprising, given the price. HP paired this with a Core i5-7400 processor. The Pavilion also has 8GB of RAM, a 1TB hard drive, and Windows 10.

The HP Pavilion Power 580-023w is a gaming computer HP have released to compete in the budget, entry to mid-level pre-built gaming PC market. The system offers decent performance power for folks interested in media creation, video editing, graphic art and gaming. It features a 1TB HDD, Intel core i5-7400 processor and a midrange enthusiast Nvidia GTX 1060 3GB graphics card. It is a great upgrade for those after a system to start their gaming life.

Design

The chassis design of the HP Pavilion 580 borrows so much from its predecessors like the HP Pavilion 570 series. The tower chassis comes in the signature black color painted on the side panels with a green HP logo embossed on the upper front.

The system measures 19.3 x 9.2 x 16.3 inches and weighs in at almost 19 pounds. The system can fit in most office spaces and the weight is no big issue since it is a stationary desktop. There is a DVD burner on the front panel that folks will find convenient for movies, reading and writing of CDs and DVDs.

Performance

The HP Pavilion packs the seventh generation Intel core i5-7400 quad core processor clocked at 3.0GHz that can run up to 3.5GHz when need arises. Being an entry mid-level gaming desktop, the core i5 processor lies pretty well to offer a good level of performance while keeping the system cool and affordable.

The HP Pavillion features 2x4GB sticks of DDR4 RAM, to offer 8GB of RAM for running the system. Folks who may want to push the Pavillion to the limits will have to replace the two sticks with 2x8GB RAM to get a total of 16GB. Now, this is enough to run all the demanding applications thrown at the machine for instance, Photoshop making it a big deal for video encoding and picture editing.

Storage in the HP Pavilion is a mixed bag, while the 1TB 7200RPM HDD it comes with offers plenty of storage space, it is not fast. Upgrading to a Solid State Drive could be a great idea as it faster operating speeds and loading of programs. Luckily, the mother board has 3 SATA slots where you can find 1 free slot to install the SSD. In case, the free slots are all occupied, then removing the existing optical drive (DVD) will provide the much needed space to accommodate the extra device.

Gaming

The HP Pavilion Power 580-023w comes with enough gaming muscle to handle a number of titles at reasonably high quality settings. The pavilion is however, a mid-level gaming computer that won’t steal the show from gaming monsters such as the….Under the hood, the system packs a GTX 1060 3GB graphics card that is likely to limit the texture size or resolution for playing.

When the HP pavilion is set at 1080p resolution and high-ultra presets, the systems offers decent frame rates on most titles. GTA 5 (~60FPS), Rise of the Tomb Raider (~65FPS), Farcry Primal (~55FPS), Fallout 4 (~75FPS), Battlefield 1 (~65FPS), Deus Ex Mankind Divided (~60FPS). Apart from gaming, the system muscles-up well on other demanding tasks. If you are into ripping movies or creating digital content, you’ll get a handsome transcode speed of 40.0 FPS and above

Connectivity

HP Pavilion Power 580-023w comes with excellent connectivity option. The front side of the system features one USB 3.0 port, the latest USB 3.0 Type C port and a headphone/microphone jack. More connectivity options are available on the back side including a two HDMI out, two USB 3.0, two USB 2.0 ports, an Ethernet port, audio (line/out) and a microphone jack.

The machine comes with a keyboard and mouse out of the box, that you can be connected through the 2.0 Ports. The 3.0 ports will come in handy especially when connecting external hard drives for fast transfer speeds. There is no monitor included thus purchasing the likes of the 23-inch Acer R240HY monitor, will make your system complete.

Internet connectivity comes by way of a dual-band 802.11a/b/g/n/ac and Bluetooth 4.2 so you won’t need to install a wireless card.

The configuration might vary depending on the model especially with the inclusion of a dedicated graphics card. Additionally, the configuration, port accessibility, and port functionality might change with any upgrades or modifications.

Conclusion

The HP Pavilion Power 580-023w is not the fastest configuration in the world, but for its affordability, it’s a respectable machine. Alternatively, you may want to consider the CyberPowerPC Gamer Xtreme VR GXIVR8020Athat is typically more expensive. The Cyber Power comes with similar hardware with a different choice on the GPU. The cyberpower features the AMD RX 580 4GB instead of the Nvidia GTX 1060 3GB that offers a slight FPS advantages in most gaming titles. Overall, if you are on a tight budget, the HP Pavilion Power 580-023w is a great buy that requires very little set up effort to get your favorite games running.

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